


4.08: WHOdunit

by Amand_r



Series: Torchwood, Season Four [10]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-14
Updated: 2011-08-14
Packaged: 2017-10-22 15:15:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/239436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amand_r/pseuds/Amand_r
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a blue box on the Plass.  And in the city centre.  And in Roath.  And in Penarth.  The team investigates a murder that might be out of this world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	4.08: WHOdunit

EPISODE 8: WHOdunit

"Je veux ton amour  
Et je veux ta revanche  
Je veux ton amour." (Lady Gaga)

 

"And then we had to cut open the dead horses and crawl inside them for warmth, until we were rescued."

Maggie stared at Daniel with saucer eyes. Gwen covered her mouth and bit her tongue. They were leaving the sewer access in lower Penarth, after what had pretty much been a fruitless search for live weevils. All the weevils were dead. They weren't even finding carcasses anymore.

"Oh wow," Maggie breathed. "Like in _Star Wars_."

Daniel shone his torch along the wall as they ambled. "Smelled better than a Taun Taun."

Maggie stopped and stared at Daniel. "I love you."

"Yes, well," Gwen cut in before it could get stranger (or geekier). "Nothing but a bunch of shite, yeah? Let's go home and shower. Separately," she added. It wasn't that she thought Maggie and Daniel were going to become an item, it was that people in Torchwood tended to hump each other like rabbits, and she didn't want to be around to see it blossoming. She remembered busting Tosh's computer because of the innocent (or not-so-innocent) flirting that came with that kind of humping, and she would like for them to do all of that outside of the Hub.

Preferably when she was not around.

She walked ahead at a brisk pace towards the access up. Behind her, Maggie asked, "So, where do you stand on Jar-Jar…?"

"You can't be seriously."

"Seriously, you're my new BFF."

"Is that badly?" Daniel pulled down the access ladder and waved Maggie to go up first. Gwen covered their backs in the tunnel, just in case there was something down there that wanted a parting swipe.

Maggie replied as she clunked up the ladder. "No, it's cracker. We'll quote Star Wars and have a secret soci—oof!" She lost her footing on the ladder and stuttered down a rung.

Daniel reached up with one hand, but his palm didn't actually connect with anything, which was good, because if it had, it would have been Maggie's arse. Gwen could just see them having blonde Celtic/Nordic sex right here, and she didn't want to. Dear god, she didn't want to.

"Stay on target," Daniel said, and Maggie laughed. Oh god, Rhys said that when aiming nappies for the bin.

Speaking of, she desperately needed to be home. They'd been down here for an hour, and after a time, the smell permeated clothing irrevocably. Gwen had a huge clothing budget, but she was getting tired of taking her clothing off and dumping it in the bin. It wasn't even fit to send to the charity shops.

By the time she got topside, Daniel was behind her, and Maggie was heading down the street where they'd parked Twun. Gwen dusted herself off, slipped her weevil spray in her pocket (she couldn't remember the last time she'd used it--maybe it had other uses) and fished for her keys. Behind her, Daniel slid the cover back onto the sewer access and scooped up his bag, metal something or others clanking inside. He jogged the few metres to catch up and fell into step beside her.

"So, I see you and Maggie are getting along just swimmingly," she breezed, scanning the closed shops with curiosity. What did they sell down here? Bait?

Daniel shrugged the pack onto his shoulder. "She is going to teach me how to play foosball."

"Football? Maggie?"

Daniel glanced at Gwen and held out his hands, twisting them back and forth. "Foosball."

"Oh, well, then, colour me wrong."

They rounded the corner and found Maggie standing on the pavement, hands on hips, staring at the entrance to the side street where they'd parked the car.

"If I'm not mistaken, this wasn't here when we arrived," Maggie said, eyes never leaving the blue police box that blocked the SUV into the alleyway.

She was right. Gwen hadn't seen the Doctor's blue box in what felt like ages, and even then, it had never been more than pictures. The POLICE BOX sign was lit up, but the windows were dark. Daniel slowed a little, hanging back so that he could be the rear in what Gwen was sure was going to be a little investigative troupe.

"That bloke we're supposed to be on the look out for lives in one of these," Maggie said, tapping the wooden door. "Doctor, uhm, Doctor…"

"Yes?" Daniel asked.

"No," Gwen told them, "Just Doctor."

Maggie shook her head. "Doctor who?"

Gwen shrugged. "Just _The_ Doctor."

Daniel fished his Maglite back out of his satchel and flicked it on, then inadvertently held it up to his chin so that he looked as if he was about to tell a ghost story. "Oh, _that_ Doctor."

Never more so than now did Gwen wish that Jack had gone with them tonight. But he'd booked off, probably to trawl the clubs. He'd walk right up to that thing and swing the door open and scream, 'Honey, I'm home!' Or if it was locked, he had a key, she thought.

Still, Gwen hadn't seen the Doctor in person, not ever, and if Jack was to be believed, he didn't always look the same. On the other hand, most of the time he showed up on the Plass, right? Why block their way unless he had some reason?

"So this is the Tardis," Maggie said, running a finger down the side of the ship. She frowned and rubbed her fingers together. "Is there a reason the Tardis would have a fresh coat of paint?" She held up her darkened hand. "I mean, it's got a chameleon circuit and all."

Gwen made a note to grill Maggie about everything she knew about the Doctor's ship later. For now, she drew her weapon. "Why don't we take a butcher's," she murmured, gesturing with the barrel. Maggie backed a few steps away, and Daniel dropped his satchel and crept towards the knob in front. With any luck it was unlocked. And if it were the Tardis, for real, they would call Jack. And try not to let Maggie take off in it. Even now, as she backed towards the wall, Maggie's eyes gleamed and her mouth was turned up in some sort of smile. Gwen didn't want to know what she was thinking.

She trained her gun on the front door as Daniel scooted himself as far to the side as possible whilst still being able to open the door. The handle turned with no resistance and the door swung in smoothly, revealing a dark hollow. Gwen gestured with her barrel, and Daniel pointed the Maglite inside, sweeping the walls of what was simply an empty box.

"What's that on the back?" Maggie asked, standing beside Gwen. The flashlight slid up to the back wall of the box, providing enough light to read by.

"Oh God," Gwen whispered, and then turned to Maggie. "Where's Jack?

***

"This is ridiculous."

"You agreed."

"But not to this."

"You didn't stipulate."

"Yes, but—"

"This is what you agreed to do. To apologise. For burying me in concrete."

"I meant something along the lines of buying you a car or something."

"I'll keep that in mind. Let's go," Jack said, stuffing his hands in his pockets and walking briskly through the rain, past the White Hart. Every time he passed that place he thought of someone he'd rather not. "Gourmet Burger closes in an hour, and I want our hands to be covered in raita and ketchup before then."

Beside him, Dee matched his pace, but there was something decidedly unregimental, nay, _defeated_ about her shoulders. "Do they even have eating utensils?"

Jack laughed. "You would have done so well in the heyday of the Empire," he told her, and then thought about that for a second. "No, wait, you would have been bored out of your mind."

Dee thought about that for a second, eyes distant. "Bad food, corsets and non-automatic firearms. No thanks."

_It’s so magical, we'd be so fantastical._

"I keep hearing this song everywhere," Dee mumbled.

Jack cocked his head and tried to make out the lyrics: _Ready for those flashing lights_. "Well, you know they have to do this viral thing to sell records."

"No one buys records anymore."

"And with music like this, is it any wonder?"

Dee shook her head. "Could you be any more of an old man?"

"Says the woman who uses a fork to eat a bon-bon."

"Look, you don't wash your hands every time before you eat something, and so if you haven't washed, you should…are you listening to me?"

He was, he really was, but they had decided to cut across the Plass, and you know, old time's sake and all that. The site of the crime, as it were. And all his crimes below. But as they rounded the water tower to walk through the basin, Jack spied the people gathered about the thing on the paving stone.

His paving stone.

This time he couldn't blame it on the ghost machine. They'd dismantled that and packed it away. It wasn't a ghost anyway.

"Where'd this come from?" he asked a short girl standing next to it.

She shrugged. "Dunno. Was just here when I got here." She waved at the lights up top. "Odd bit of history, innit?"

He motioned her back, then knocked.

Nothing.

"Harkness—"

Jack opened the door in a smooth movement; it opened out, not in. Bad form. Bad sign.

Nothing.

"It's an old police box," Dee said. "Well, a model of one, I guess. Who would put one of those out here?"

Jack shone his penlight on the inside—it was unpainted plywood, but the back wall, the one directly in front of him, was white with pasted paper. He read the first line aloud.

"Dear Cardiff, if you have seen one of these on the street before today, then chances are, you've seen The Doctor."

 

  
  


 

 _"I'll be your girl backstage at your show,"_ Lois sang, pouring her coffee and in general trying to lift her spirits. Today was not going to be a good day, what with the boxes. No, not thinking about the boxes until everyone was in. Apparently, Maggie had been comatose until Lois had called her fifteen minutes ago.

"I know that song," Daniel said to her as he pulled out the steam wand. Bless him, trying to get that infernal machine to work. Soon he would see the glory of the French press. "Popo-razzi."

Lois snorted. "Sometimes they're like that, yes," she admitted, handing him the milk.

Her phone rang and she sang to herself as she pop-and-locked over to get it. Bertie had been good for some things. She was the pop-and-lock queen. " _Something something and cigarettes._ Hallo?" They never identified themselves as Torchwood.

"Eyeliner and cigarettes," said the voice. "Eyeliner."

"Where are you?" Lois said as she put Jack on speakerphone so that everyone could hear. Not that they could hear much over the sound of Daniel doing battle with the steam wand on the Ghost of Ianto Jones.

There was a groan. "I'm in bed. I had a late night."

Lois looked at Jack's office door. "Seriously? You're downstairs, and you—"

"I don't think you understand. These sheets are eight hundred count. Dee bought them for me." "Milk this concrete thing as much as you can, Harkness," Dee called as she came out of her office and tossed a report on Lois's desk. "Soon I will find a conversion scale for my sins that's better than that Vatican II one you dragged out."

Jack laughed. "I love the Pope. Nice hat. Rides in the tic tac box. Besides, I had a late night."

"We all had a late night," Dee reminded him, "don't you remember all of us being here and working?"

"Is that…unnngf! What we…unnngf! were doing…unnngf!?"

Lois stared at the speakerphone. He couldn't be. She wasn't going to ask him. Where was he? In the loo? No, he wouldn't do that to them. To her.

"Harkness, what on God's green earth are you doing down there?" Dee asked, stealing Lois's coffee and taking a sip. She smiled and pointed inquisitively at Daniel. Oh hell no, he hadn't made this.

The grunting continued. "How do you think…unngf! I maintain these abs…unnngf! of steel, Dee-Dee?" There was a clinking, and Lois realised that he was hanging by his knees from the ladder rungs. Well, that was one way to do crunches.

"Is that Jack?" said a voice above them, and they glanced up to see Gwen hanging over the railing in front of her office. "JACK I FUCKING NEED YOU." Then she turned and stormed back into her office, slamming the transparisteel frame door.

Jack sighed. "The ladies, they never get enough."

"Since last night, there have been eight more reports of blue boxes, as far as Glamorgan and Barry," Lois said, reclaiming her coffee. "That's eleven so far. Gwen wants us to pick them all up."

"Why?" Dee sat on the edge of the desk and took Lois's coffee again, drinking from the opposite rim. For god's sake, Lois gestured for her to keep it.

"Because we're going to find out who's been doing this and why," Jack said jovially. There was a creak of bedsprings. "Oh man, I haven't eaten since lunch yesterday."

"I bought you a…"Lois glanced at the bag on her desk, the grease seeping through the bottom and onto her UNIT req. forms. Just as well, they _never_ let her have C-4. "Something with jambon and mushrooms."

"Is it wrapped in dough?"

"Indeed."

There was a sigh. "All right," Jack groaned, "I suppose this means that I have to get dressed."

Dee grabbed the paper bag from Lois's desk and opened it, sniffing. She made a face. "Triple S, Harkness."

There was a chuckle. "I love it when you get all acronymy, Deirdre. I'm outie." The line went dead, and then they heard him yell from his office, _"Give me fifteen!"_ Lois shook her head. She suspected that Jack just liked to yell from his office a great deal, and he hadn't much occasion to do that anymore.

"Triple S?" Lois asked, raising an eyebrow at Dee.

Daniel handed her a cup of coffee. He'd tamed the coffee machine, but his coffee was shite. Lois figured she'd let him do it long enough to see how he was doing it, and then she'd take over and perfect the process. Ianto Jones owed her for the many silk blouses he'd ruined with his possessed coffee machine.

"Shit, shower and shave," Daniel informed her, then sipped from his coffee. "I do not think I understand why you keep this thing if it doesn't work."

Dee finished Lois's coffee and washed the cup. "War memorial."

Daniel nodded. Nothing more needed to be said. Then he drank the entire cup without making a face.

Lois thought she might have to re-evaluate her assessment that Daniel was a robot.

***

Dee stared at her fingertips. Hadn’t she told herself that she was supposed to get a manicure? When was that? Back in February? It was April, and her fingers were all...cuticle-y.

In front of her, the blue box disappeared into the lorry bed with a grunt. Someone swore. "I got a splinter!"

It wasn't that she didn't think this was important. It was that she hated lifting things. Once, she had had the displeasure of feeling a man's herniated intestines poking through his abdominal wall after he tried to lift too much ammunition, and ever since then, the concept of 'pulling anything' was real and highly to be avoided. Dee waved at the worker on the lorry, and he slid the newest Tardis box back towards the others.

"… _Cardiff, if you have seen one of these on the street before today, then chances are, you've seen The Doctor._ This is the line making the rounds today as all of Cardiff wonders about the appearance of—"

The press was keeping a wide berth, which was rather strange. Usually they were all over the place like ants at a daytrip. The workers, two blokes named Daffyd, no kidding, winked at the cameras, and Dee rolled her eyes behind her glasses.

"--I'm here in Roath, standing across the street from one of the mysterious blue police boxes that appeared overnight as if by magic. Over a dozen of them have been spotted all over South Wales this morning—"

Daffyd the first jumped from the Harwood's lorry and grinned at her. Lord, he was missing a front tooth. "Reckon there's a bit of publicity for the company, eh?"

Daffyd the second joined him and snorted, laughing. "Aye and then we'll all be in there, yeah?"

Dee blinked and realised that she had no idea what they were talking about. Absolutely none. Daffyd One and Two nudged each other and waved at the camera from BBC Wales. "I better tell Rhi about this. She can put a cassy in the VCR," Daffyd remarked, pulling out his phone.

Dee had thought that VCRs were mythical creatures by now, up there with air blowing popcorn makers and eight track machines. She peered into the back of the lorry at the five police boxes they’d been collecting. They were all identical. She was willing to be that they'd be able to trace the paint at least, if not the plywood. If they were really lucky, they'd get fingerprints. And then it would be an adventure.

It was clever and senseless, she had to admit. The message inside the box was a fairly short missive about the Doctor and his sightings.

"--Unnamed city officials in trucks have already begun to retrieve the boxes, but have yet to comment themselves about their origins, or what their presence means—"

"-- _'Whenever the Doctor comes he either saves us or brings destruction._ The box's message continues, _'Government officials have known about this alien visitor for decades, and have never seen fit to capture the creature or release this information to the public'_ \--"

There was a soft chime and she pressed her bluetooth. The press looked at her like hopeful puppies, and she ducked behind the side of the lorry, away from them. "Hullo?"

"Are you in Roath or Adamstown?" Gwen asked brusquely. Something about the boxes bothered her. Possibly the whole government connection. She didn’t like when people looked too closely at them. It was only a matter of time, really, before people found out about Torchwood and what it did. The way Jack and Gwen guarded the secrecy of it was less like a routine than a past experience in revealing the truth that had backfired.

"Roath."

"Leave that one there," Gwen told her. In the background of the call she could hear the radio and someone clinking a metal something or other. She was on speakerphone. Dee hated speakerphone.

"Pardon?"

"We’re going to leave some of them where they are," Gwen elaborated. "New plan."

"So explain to me what the plan is," Dee said, staring at the peeling paint on the side of the lorry. Had they given her the oldest truck they had?

"Bait!" Jack replied cheerfully.

"Does it really act as bait when it's already there and we're not the ones who put it there?" Lois said distractedly. Was everyone in this call?

There was a click, and Dee knew from the sound that someone had joined the line. Bless Maggie for adding in that new signal. It was strange enough to be making these conference calls with both your hands in your pockets in the first place.

"We took them all away," Gwen said. "The person or persons who set up the boxes have to be wondering where they are. Or perhaps they want them back, now that they're starting to disappear. They might even wonder why we left those boxes."

"You have to admit, it was a good game," Maggie said. "No one got hurt, and they played the world's most secretive private joke."

Dee didn't agree. The planet was still coming around to the concept of aliens. There were whole swaths of people who refused to believe aliens existed. She figured in about twenty years they'd be so far in the minority that they'd be lumped in with holocaust and moon landing deniers. But for the time being, even if you did believe in aliens, you still didn't know enough not to put you on edge at the thought of them. Hell, Dee was Torchwood, and so far she hadn't seen an overwhelming majority of things from outer space to fill her with tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy.

"Well, this was a shot across our bow," Gwen replied. "Playtime is over."

Dee cut off the call and waved to the Daffyds of Hazzard. "Get that last one back down."

"But we just loaded it!" Daffyd One said, in the middle of unbuckling his weight belt. She wondered if the thick leather about his gut was supposed to protect him from perforated stomach walls and blah blah intestines where they oughtn’t to be.

Dee shrugged. "You know how it is." They stared at her sullenly, and she remembered one of the best things about having the boss' husband's company do the work. "Overtime?"

The Daffyds raced for the truck.

***

"So, explain to me again who the straight man is," Gwen said as they sat in the SUV and stared at the blue box across the street.

Lois ticked her fingers. "If it's anyone and Dee, she's the straight man. Me and Maggie, I'm the straight man. You and me, or you and Maggie, you're the straight man."

Gwen chewed her popcorn and paused. "Wait, when is Jack the straight man?"

"I am never the straight man," Jack said into their bluetooths, and Lois jumped. Gwen almost choked on a popcorn kernel.

"That's what she said," Maggie told him.

"That doesn't work this time," Dee informed her. Gwen shoveled popcorn into her mouth so she wouldn't say anything.

"That's what she said," Maggie replied.

"If you keep saying it, you will eventually stumble into something funny," Jack mused.

"That's what she said."

"You're not quite there yet."

"That's what she said."

"Aaaaand now we're there."

Gwen sipped from her bottle of Lilt Zero and cleared her throat. Popcorn was salty. If she kept drinking, she was going to have to piss in the alley, never fun on a stakeout. They needed some of those stand up urinals for women.

"How's it where you are?"

"Boring," Jack said.

"That's what she said," Maggie told him, and then Gwen heard the sounds of a minor scuffle. Maggie and Jack were in Twee over in Roath, out of sight of but within view of the blue box. Dee and Daniel were sitting near one in Penarth, and Gwen and Lois were in Twoo watching the one on the Plass. Eventually, they had to turn up something.

So far, they watched people approach the box tentatively. They would walk about it, take pictures on their mobiles. Some opened it, read the message and shrugged. Some laughed. One drunk man had staggered in, shut the door, and then emerged a few moments later, zipping his flies.

"I am straight," Daniel said.

"Of course you are," Lois mumbled and Gwen choked on a kernel. She pounded her chest and coughed, hand covering the mike on her bluetooth, then leant forward so Lois could slap her back, all the while the comm lit up with queries and comments about how she sounded like a vomiting dog (thanks, Jack). Gwen blinked tears from her eyes and finished her bottle. My god, that burned.

When everything had calmed down, Lois resumed her hard stare at the blue box on the Plass. Gwen didn’t know who they were looking for, but she’d know it when she saw it.

That’s what she said.

"Someone tell me why this is such a big deal, anyway," Dee mumbled. She wasn’t one for mumbling. Something about the past few days had made her sulkier than usual. Not that Dee sulked, but sometimes she got moody when she thought her time was being wasted.

"It just is," Gwen shrugged. "Jack?"

"Not in the mood," Jack said. "Yes, yes, I know, that’s what she said."

"I don’t understand," Daniel said. "Who is she? Why are we saying everything that she has already said?"

Gwen heard a sigh and a snicker and realised that this was possibly one of the best stakeouts she’d ever been on. That was saying something, actually. She shoved a handful of popcorn into her mouth and took a new bottle of Lilt from Lois.

"What do we know about the Doctor, really?" Maggie asked. Gwen rolled the top of her bag of popcorn. This was no longer a conversation conducive to eating, and that was just as well.

"I have a dossier," Lois answered. "You may have it when we return."

What Gwen knew about the Doctor was limited. Of course she knew about the Doctor’s connection to Jack or vice versa, and the Doctor’s penchant for showing up to get the planet out of trouble (though not lately). She wondered if Jack had seen the Doctor on his trip across the universe. She wondered if Jack ever thought about travelling time and fixing things that perhaps ought to be fixed. Because once Ianto had joined them to open the Rift, to change time, and Jack had been the one to say no. Would he still?

She was about ninety-eight percent sure that Jack would never, could never say yes. Something of the time vortex in his blood, perhaps? Gwen only heard certain parts of the explanation, gleaned from Jack one night after Tosh and Owen had died. Ianto had plied him with alcohol, and everything had spilled out. Gwen had hugged him, and then Ianto, and it had been a tender moment. And then someone’s hand had been on her arse, and the moment was gone, especially when Jack had said something like, "Well, this is sexy."

The comm went silent. Lois picked at her nails. Dee was probably sitting perfectly still, hands in her lap. Jack was humming over the comm, and Maggie was probably playing Bejeweled on the SUV’s computer.

The sky was perfectly clear, one of the loveliest nights she’d seen in ages. The stars spanned outwards in a panoply that seemed to go on forever, and probably did. Gwen didn’t like to stare up at the night sky much anymore, because it made her wonder what was coming for them. When she had first joined Torchwood, she had looked to the sky for answers, and then when Jack had disappeared (the first time) she had looked to it to bring him back. But now, the blackness of it reminded her of a hood going over the head, and the stars twinkled in a sinister rhythm.

"I have to ask," Lois said suddenly, "is it possible that something not human planted these? Like to lure in the Doctor?"

Gwen gave the matter thought, and then waited for the expert answer.

"Well, yeah, but it’s a pretty dumb idea," Jack drawled. Gwen was about to reply, but he wasn’t finished. "On the other hand, dumber things have worked. Once we were all transmatted into game shows."

"Which game show?" Maggie asked.

"Well, I was on this makeover show with these two stunning..."

"Hullo there," Lois murmured to Gwen, and the two of them watched a group of people carry some bulky bags up to the side of the box. Gwen ignored her comm, but in the background she could faintly hear Jack saying, "--and then they had me put on this leather daddy outfit--"

"That them, you think?" she mumbled, capping her drink and stashing it in the cup holder. Lois fumbled with her keys, a stun gun, and a set of plastic restraints that she was trying to tuck into her very small jacket pocket. Gwen memorised the details of the three people before remembering to flip on the recorder mounted into one of the sides of the dashboard. Three people, one of them possibly female, given the skirt, two with short hair, one with a mohawk. Dark coats.

"--so then they vaporised my clothes off _again_ , and I had this gun stashed--"

Gwen chewed her lip and watched one of the figures by the Plass dig about in a bag. One of the other ones ran his fingers along the side of the box, inspecting it. He reached out and took something that was offered to him, shook it, and popped the cap on it. Spray paint.

"Taggers?" Lois said, lifting a pair of binoculars to her face.

"Possibly," Gwen agreed. Just figured that they’d miss the people responsible for the box and catch people defacing the box instead. "Let them be if they are. Could drive our perps out."

Lois smirked to herself. "Perps."

"--so there were all these Daleks, okay--"

Gwen rolled her eyes. She’d heard this story before. "Can you see what they’re doing?" Apparently no one on the line had cottoned on to the fact that Gwen and Lois had a _thing_ going on, but that was okay. She didn’t want to get ribbed for taking down a bunch of graffiti punks.

Lois didn’t say anything for a minute, just watched the man with the can spray up and down on the side of the box, staring at it in minute detail. "Wait, he’s not tagging. He’s repairing scraped paint."

Gwen pulled her stun gun. "That’s our cue, then. Think they’ll rabbit?

Lois tossed the binoculars on the dash and opened her door. "I dunno. Weren’t you police?"

Gwen smiled and slammed her door shut. "Oh yeah. That’s right."

"--and I grabbed his face and _kissed_ him, and it was like, _wow_ \--"

Lois went around the back way to cut them off if they decided to run, and Gwen joined the herd of people milling about the Plass. She should have kept her bottle. It would have made her look less conspicuous.

Her mind was on record as she approached: two men, one girl, late teens, early twenties, medium height, drab dress, fashionable, goth-like. Possibly Emo something or other. The back of the girl’s jacket read Skinny Puppy. Really? They were still around?

Gwen whistled under her breath and put her bluetooth on mute. She didn’t need armchair coaching from Jack, or god help her, Dee. Lois was out of sight. The girl tossed the can of spray paint back into her bag and opened the door to the box, stepping inside.

"It smells like piss in here, Huw," she said.

"Maybe that’s why the pigs left it," the third man chimed in. He was taller than the others, and scratched his arms in a tell-tale manner. Oh, lovely. A junkie.

"Don’t matter," said the third man, presumably Huw. "They left it for a reason, I wager. Probably recording us right now."

Junkie scratched his nose and jolted. "Recording us? Where?" He raised his hands in a double V and spun around in a circle so that he could be seen from every angle.

Huw lit a cigarette. "I don’t think you get the whole point of this thing," he said around the butt and his cupped hand.

Gwen closed the gap and stood next to the small group. "What is the point, exactly?"

"Shit," the girl said, dropping the bag. "Torchwood."

Gwen filed away the fact that she was made by appearance alone and starred it in her mental list to ask later. Lois appeared from behind the water tower, stun gun out but not up. Gwen hoped there wasn’t going to be a scene.

"I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you a few questions," she said, reaching for Junkie’s shoulder in a reassuring pat.

Not the best move. "Gerroff me!" shouted Junkie, waving his hands. "I HAVE RIGHTS."

Lois trained the stun gun on the other man, who hadn’t even bothered to let go of his cigarette. Instead, he clamped it between his lips, nodded to the girl, and held out his wrists.

"All right then, off we go," he said, gesturing with his outstretched hands. "Take us away."

Lois blinked at him, and then glanced at Gwen. Huh.

Junkie was still having none of it. He flopped down on the ground and hit his head on the kerb. "POLICE BRUTALITY!"

Gwen hauled him to his feet, flashed her badge at the crowd, and then dragged him down the street as gently as she could, whilst Lois merely followed Huw and the girl back to the SUV.

Junkie flapped his hands again. His head had to hurt. There was blood on his scalp. It would give Daniel something to do, really.

"Vandy, hesh up," the girl said. "They can’t do nothing. We didn’t do nothing."

Gwen opened the back hatch of the SUV and lowered the locking gate that would keep their passengers from crawling into the back seat. There was a little bit of jostling to fit everyone in, and then she slammed the hatch on them all. The tinted windows kept them safely out of public view, which was just as well, since she could hear the thumping on the glass and Vandy’s muffled shouts of, "Four five six was a lie! Flatulent aliens control Parliament! The government assassinated Prime Minister Jones!" Oh dear god.

Lois shrugged at her and wiped her hands, and belatedly Gwen remembered her comm. She unmuted her speaker to call off the stakeout, but Lois raised her hand. "Let him finish."

"--I have the plasma rifle and I’m backing down the hallway, see, and all these Daleks are everywhere..."

***

Jack stared at Cora. Cora stared back. Jack blinked. Cora blinked. Jack moved his hands. Cora moved her hands. Jack thought about scratching his balls or something, but that was taking it too far.

"This is my favorite scene in Jaws," Jack said blithely. Cora didn't say anything, so he decided that it was time to begin. "It was cute, the boxes. I assume you know why we're a little upset."

"Vandalism?" Cora answered, eyes wide.

"Yup. We dragged you in here for vandalism." Jack wished he had a file to tap. People wigged out when you tapped a closed file. "Do you have any idea what domestic terrorism laws have to say about large boxes being mysteriously deposited in public places?"

Cora shrugged. "I suppose."

"You aren't buying any of this, are you?"

Cora shrugged again.

"Okay, I'll just lay it out for you, Cor," Jack said, leaning forward and laying his hands flat on the table. "You guys did a dumb joke that only a few people really took seriously. But those people get upset fairly easily, and they have money and guns at their disposal."

Cora shrugged. Maybe she had a tick.

"So, who came up with it? I am guessing it wasn't Mister Hygienically Challenged in the next room over." Jack figured it didn't cost him anything to pretend to be clueless. Playing clueless got you a lot of things. And out of many speeding tickets. "The other one? The chain smoker?"

"Huw," Cora replied, sitting up a little bit. Ah.

"Known him long?" Jack asked. This is where a file would have come in handy.

"He's my boyfriend," Cora said, curling a strand of her short black bob about her finger. "We met at the ghost watch on the Plass."

"Which one?" Jack asked, and then remembered that around the time Torchwood One fell, Cora had probably been about twelve. Oh how time flew when everyone was busy shooting things in the face and dying. "Ah Ghost Machine."

Cora tilted her head. "They were ghosts, weren't they?"

Jack sat back and ignored her. It was obvious that she was either the best liar in the universe, or she thought this whole thing was a prank. And speaking of, it rather was, wasn't it? And he liked to think that he was familiar with the ways and means of the great liars of the universe.

Cora didn't know anything. Huw was one of those cocky idiots who believed in massive conspiracies and subscribed to that bullshite about public right to know. The old claptrap.

"Why'd you pick the blue boxes?"

Cora shrugged. "We picked one of the ghosts. You know the Doctor, right?"

It was Jack's turn to lie. But he couldn't open his mouth. It was glued shut. He settled for shrugging.

"I could murder a pasty," Cora said, as if she was sitting at the pub with her mates and not in an underground interrogation room in a secret governmental facility where, if they were less scrupulous people, they could just lock her away and toss the key.

If they, you know, used keys these days. Symbolism and all.

"We're done here." Jack stood, making sure to let his metal chair legs scrape the floor with maximum effect. Some things just had to be done; it was the principle of the thing. He headed for the door. He was hungry.

"Can I get some water?" Cora called after him. Jack ignored her and shut the door.

Jack always suspected that his potassium levels were low when he died the first time, and so he was constantly living with a low level. Or maybe he just liked bananas. Yeah, that was it. Who didn't love a good banana? There were whole groves of them out there that used to be arms manufacturing factories.

***

Gwen closed the door to the interrogation room and leant against the metal. She could faintly hear the occupant continuing his tirade, which was pretty much a recitation of every punk song that had once been considered underground and then become popular enough to appeal to posers.

 _"Is this the M.P.L.A or is this the U.D.A or is this the I.R.A I thought it was the UK!"_ Vandy pumped his fist in the air. _"Or just another country another council tenancy!"_

"You know what would be great?" she said to Maggie as they stared into the two-way glass and watched Vandy slam dance with the soundproof wall (which was working a charm. It was the door that wasn’t so soundproof. Another thing to fix.). "A hole for a dart gun. You know, one of those pygmy things?"

Maggie took a step back. "I’ll be right ba--"

"No," Gwen said, grabbing her arm and tugging her back before she could scurry off to her lab and unearth some horrible machination that would seem like a good idea at the time. Gwen thought that all new tech had a special "new car smell" that twisted the minds of all those around them so that they always seemed like a great idea. Then the smell faded, and you were left with a horrible mess to clean up.

Or bury.

Maggie shrugged. "Your choice."

Vandy banged his head off the wall and staggered a bit.

"Is his real name Vandy?" Maggie asked finally, arms crossed.

Gwen cocked her head and wondered when he'd piss himself and pass out. "No, actually. Percival. Percival Alun Hocking."

Maggie smiled as they turned away and sauntered down the hall. "So there is justice in the world."

Gwen rolled her eyes. Vandy had been next to useless. In fact, she didn't expect anything from any of their detainees, really. The story was pretty simple: make some boxes, put them up, expose a government 'conspiracy.' Rather idiotic, but not out of the realm of plausibility. Kids these days had a lot of time on their hands.

Not that their next interviewee was a kid. Huw Donagal was twenty-three, unemployed, or so he said, but his hands hinted at freelance construction work. He admitted to designing and building the police boxes, but he hadn't said much beyond that. Gwen was looking forward to a chance to rib him a little before they cut him loose.

The fact was that Torchwood wasn't secret by any means. People knew about them, and what they did. Aliens were even less of a secret. People looked to the skies nightly waiting to see what would come next. What they didn't know was how much alien life and debris was already here, and keeping that bit secret was part of their job. People weren't ready to deal with Madam Snazz and the Jazz Player.

More importantly, they weren't ready to deal with the fact that the government had been keeping them a secret for over a hundred years. And when Gwen figured out how to handle that one, she'd step up and let the Queen knight her.

But for now, every once in a while they got some vigilante who ran about, tailed them, set up a website, called the papers, etc. For the most part, they were easy to control--Maggie unleashed the dogs of computer virii, and Gretchen or Dee would administer some retcon (now available in strawberry flavour).

Gwen opened the door to the next interrogation room and stepped in. Huw was seated in his chair, hands flat on the table. He was pretty sedate, had been since Gwen and Lois had brought him in. The girl, Cora, had been the first person Gwen had sat down with. And she hadn't been very helpful either.

"Hullo Huw," Gwen said. "I can call you Huw, right?"

Huw stared at her skeptically He looked like every other Welsh bloke--brown hair, white face, blue eyes, nonchalant expression. Bad haircut, actually. Button down. Shite jeans spattered with blue paint. A faint lingering smell of indoor smoking.

"Huw, Huw," Gwen said, sliding into the chair across from him. Maggie shut the door, but probably leant against the wall behind Gwen. Maggie liked playing good cop bad cop, but she, like Lois, wasn't very good at either. "Those are lovely boxes."

"You can't keep us," Huw said firmly. His fingers interlaced on the tabletop. "We didn't do anything."

Gwen gestured vaguely. Jack had taught her that ignoring the obvious made her silence more frightening. Because while he was right, she didn't have to address it. Not yet. And that made it seem like he was wrong. She didn't have to incriminate herself or anything. Priceless.

It occurred to her that a few years ago that might have bothered her.

"I just wanted to pick your brain about a few things," Gwen replied. She laid out some photos of the boxes. "Your letter inside, for instance. Have you ever met the Doctor?"

Huw's fingers untied themselves and he turned pink. "You tell me."

"That's a no, then." Gwen leant back and smiled. "Were you hoping to meet the Doctor? Cause a panic? Make a splash? A statement? Or just be irritating?"

"People know all about aliens now," Huw retorted. "There's no reason for you to exist anymore."

Gwen couldn't help herself. "You don't know all about aliens."

"She's right," Maggie added, and Gwen wondered again why she was in here. "You don't know anything, really."

Huw patted his jacket pocket. "Could really use a fag."

Gwen pulled his pack from her jacket pocket and tossed it at him. "Can't give you a light, sorry."

Huw took the pack and turned it around and around on the table. "Look, people deserve to know the truth." He sighed. "You people almost let them take our kids--"

"You people being..."

"Torchwood," Huw answered. "You shouldn't be in business anymore. I hope that superpowered bint beat the pants off your people."

Gwen cocked her head. He was starting to make less and less sense. "You think that Torchwood wanted to send the children to the Four-Five-Six," she said, unfolding the idea in her brain just as she said it.

Huw stuck the butt of a cigarette in his mouth but couldn't light it. Just the presence of it seemed to please him, because the other side of his mouth quirked in a smile. "You're the ones who deal with that, right? You and UNIT."

"What do you know about UNIT?"

"They were everywhere when the Daleks tried to take over," Huw replied. "For Christ's sake, you really think you're good at keeping secrets?"

Maggie snorted. "You have no idea."

Oh good job, Mags, give it away. Gwen decided to change the tack of the discussion. Well, I am sure the police would be interested to know who's been planting these boxes all about town," she said. "Impersonating a police officer--"

"We didn't say we were coppers--"

Gwen snorted and Maggie shuffled her feet. "See, as far as they're concerned, when you paint your car up like a panda and just drive it about, that's close enough for them. You," she waved a finger, "put up close to two dozen call boxes. What if someone had gone to one of them for help?"

"They would have been disappointed, yeah?"

"And they might have noticed, when they picked you up, the fifteen grams of heroin that you friend had on him--"

"He's not my friend--"

"Right. Or the cans of spray paint your girlfriend had in her bag--"

"She';s not my girlfriend."

Gwen stared at him. Sometimes if you were silent long enough, they just cracked. And he had to be wondering what she would do to him, especially if he thought she was powerful enough to mastermind the corralling of ten percent of the earth's children with a such a small support staff. Ianto'd been good, but not that good.

"I think I'm just going to hand you over to them," Gwen said tiredly. "I know they're looking into some domestic terrorism charges."

Huw rolled his eyes. "What is the world coming to, I ask you."

Gwen had to agree with him. She didn't want to agree with him, ever. "I think that's all for now."

"We were just getting started!" Huw replied, half-rising. Maggie held out one hand at him, possibly forgetting that she hadn't a firearm, and he froze. Perhaps he thought she could kill him with her brain. Wouldn't that be a treat. Gwen took another page from the book of Harkness and left without saying anything, Maggie shutting the door behind them.

"Jesus, he's something else," Gwen said, watching Huw look about on the floor. Probably looking for the hidden microphone. It was in the ceiling, dumbarse.

"He's a little pissant, is what he is," Maggie mumbled.

"He who?" Jack said, rounding the corner and leaning against the wall. He was peeling a banana. Gwen wondered when Jack ever ate so much. Was this a sign of depression? Happiness? Maybe he just trusted the cleanliness of the new Hub as opposed to the old.

"Can I kick him in the balls?" Maggie asked.

"Whoa there," Jack said. "I know you're not talking about me. It was a lot easier to know when you guys were talking about me when I was the only male here." He took a huge bite of banana, and it was a testament to how focused they all were that there wasn't an ounce of innuendo to it. Or rather, actually, the more Gwen thought about it, Jack rarely did food innuendo, probably because it was too easy.

"That's what she said," she murmured.

Jack stared at Huw through the window. "I think we have to retire that joke."

Maggie bit her lips.

"In the end, there really wasn’t any harm done, right?" Maggie said. "Just some blue boxes, and another raving 'It's a conspiracy!' message that everyone laughed at, right?" She picked at her nails. "I mean, we take the boxes, scare the shit out of him, and then we let him go."

Gwen sighed, and felt it collapse her chest a little. Jack didn't look away from the glass, and she wondered what he was thinking. What did the boxes mean to him? If this was a harmless joke, there were perhaps three people in this world who might have become excited at the sight of them.

Lord, she hadn't spoken to Martha and Mickey in ages, not since they'd turned her down.

"He thinks that we had something to do with the Four-Five-Six," she said softly.

Jack glanced at her. "We did."

Gwen didn't know what to say, because she didn't _want_ to get into this. They hadn't talked about it since Jack had returned, and she had hoped that they never would.

She ignored it. "Not in the way he thinks. He thinks we were behind the rounding up of the kids."

Jack blinked. "I was."

"No, _this_ time."

"I don't think we had enough manpower for that."

Gwen didn't respond, though there were a lot of things she could have said. Jack's mouth was quirked, and his eyes sparkled. Apparently he was over the whole thing. Or he was never going to talk about it. Jack pressed his pain down so deep that it compressed into coal and fueled him for the duration. And he had a long duration to sustain.

"Well, I hate to be this person," Maggie said finally, staring into the glass at Huw, who was smacking a bit of loose metal he'd unearthed off another piece of metal. That man wanted a fag. "But I think we might have been overreacting here. They're just a bunch of conspiracists, and we don't have a legal leg to stand on." She must have realised what she said. "Not that the law applies to us. I mean, we uh, this is rather harmless."

Gwen had to grudgingly agree. Jack finished his banana in one more bite and licked the inner peel, eying her. Ah yes, old habits die hard, and well, Jack. "Yeah, I don't know what else we can do."

"We can retcon the fuck out of him, I suppose," Maggie said. "I have this idea for lickable retcon, see, it's diluted and you paint it on envelopes where the glue is."

"In another time, Mags, MI-6 would have stolen you from your bed and kept you in a cage in the basement to come up with these treats," Jack said, then took a big bite of banana.

Gwen rolled her eyes and shrugged her shoulders. "Cut him loose, all of them, but tell them we never want to have to see them again, do you understand?"

Jack tossed the peel in the bin in the hallway and saluted with two fingers. "Jawohl, Herr Commandant."

Gwen decided that she was going to ignore all of this. She was going to go upstairs and eat the half of the Caramel Milka bar that she'd locked in her desk. Then she was going to call Whitehall. Then she was going to go home. She was booking off tomorrow morning, so she could see her son when his eyes were open.

Maggie snorted. "I bet I would be better at interrogation if someone would let me kick something in the balls."

***

The Daffyd brothers were downright jovial, and Jack didn't blame them, as far as all these things went. Working on a Sunday apparently meant overtime or something, or better pay, or a happy ending. He wasn't sure about this stuff, mostly because the last time he'd worked a labouring job, they'd thrown shillings at you at the end of every day, and no one knew what a tax form was. Good times, good times.

On the other hand, hey, now there was indoor plumbing and better dentistry. So.

He leant against the open doorway to the satellite storage warehouse in Penarth that Torchwood retained. Daffyd One and Daffyd Two dumped the next to the last Tardis at the end of the new row and dusted their hands. Daffyd One and/or Two slid the trolley from under the frame and unhooked his belt. His counterpart rolled his neck and stretched.

"What are all these things, anyway?"

Jack shrugged. "Military secret."

Daffyd One snorted. "Always something."

Jack tapped his watch. "Some of us don't get overtime."

Daffyd raised his eyebrows and showed his missing tooth space. "You could help."

"Bad back."

Daffyd went back to the lorry and Jack stared out at the boxes. It was a veritable sea of false hope. He couldn't help but notice that every time he looked at them, his heartbeat quickened. If he had been a dog, the blue colour alone would have caused him to salivate.

Hundreds, no, thousands of years and he still wanted back in sometimes.

It was anticlimactic, really, picking up the last of the police boxes after cutting the three stooges loose. Huw'd had a smug look on his face that even Jack had to admit made him want to handcuff the man to the Altolusso for a few hours. Vandy had darted off, probably to get a fix, and Cora had trailed after Huw like a lost puppy. Jack felt for her. Well, not much, but he understood trailing after people.

The three of them had gone off into the early morning, and then after a few hours of sleep, Jack had roused the brothers Daffyd (they weren't related but really, it was hard to resist) to get the last three police boxes off the street. It made it difficult to look for the real one, for once. And then there was Sir Cardinal, calling up at zero dark thirty to demand a reason that there were three Doctors in Cardiff and they hadn't done anything about it.

Jack ran one finger down the front of the box. The paint rubbed off in his hand, like smearing a pastel drawing. The real one never faded, never ran, because it wasn't real paint. Wasn't a real box. It was hard to remember that sometimes, unless you were, you know, a living embodiment of the things that fuelled it.

The dim lights illuminated the fakeness of the boxes more starkly. Jack walked down the first row and stopped in front of the newest arrival, the box from the Plass, if the fresh spray paint was anything to go by. He grasped the handle and stared at the unlit glass windows.

The door swung outward, a modification Huw had made that gave the game away. Even if he hadn’t changed the design, the small space inside, devoid of alien tech, would have told the story anyway.

Or, Jack reflected as he looked at Huw’s lifeless body slumped in the box, eyes staring, that would give it away, as well.

A Daffyd closed the back of the lorry and wiped his hands, walking over to Jack. He peered in the box at Huw’s dead body and grunted. "I knew it were too heavy."

***

Maggie hummed to herself as she tuned his equipment. Daniel tried to ignore her, but his brain was supplying the words as she went along: _Real good, we dance in the studio. Snap, snap to that shit on the radio…_

It didn't help that when he turned to look at her, he stared at her backside for longer than he should have. It was a nice backside.

Daniel didn't know what the rules were for outside fraternisation. Director Cooper had never said anything about it, and that page was missing from his handbook. Missing, literally, as in the pages skipped from fifty-two to fifty-four. Captain Harkness had expressed interest in him, but Daniel wasn't sure if that was real, or if he simply had a pulse.

Maggie was pretty, and attentive, and she understood that Sith came in twos. Still.

"I think the calibration on this is all wonky," Maggie said over her shoulder. "I can tighten the coupling, but I'll have to drag it back to my lab and re -older the links when you're done with it." She shut the casing on the machine whose name he couldn't pronounce, but which was capable of isolating all forms of platelets, human or alien (or plant). He had yet found a use for it. In fact, he'd used it once just out of curiosity (it had a spinny center that made a clickety noise while it worked and glowed rainbow colours. Even if he never used it, he could probably rent it out for parties.). That Maggie was even in here to fix it was suspicious.

He wondered if he should call her Maggie, or Mrs. Hopley, or perhaps Margaret. Maggie was short for Margaret here, right? Magda? No, he decided as he tested the bone saw, his sister was named Magda.

"That is good," Daniel mumbled, setting the saw down and pulling the plastic sheet from the man's body. Maggie didn't like dead bodies, he knew that much, but he couldn't wait much longer to finish his write-up.

Maggie snapped her fingers and spun about, her eyes coming to rest on the man's face. "Oh."

Daniel shrugged. "Yes."

There was a knock on the door and Harkness and Cooper entered, poking each other and saying something like "You die," "No, you die, you die like a dog" and then snorting and laughing. Daniel turned on the translation program. He was going to need it for this.

Maggie scooted out of the room, giving him a half-hearted wave. There was another opportunity to ask her to dinner gone. Not that asking her over a corpse was probably the best thing to do. Perhaps he should ask her ro coffee first. Isn't that what people did? Coffee, upgrade to drinks, then dinner? Wait, wasn't coffee a drink?

There should have been a website for dating etiquette. He had found one, but it had been bordered on all sides with ads for weight loss and face cream, so Daniel had been skeptical.

Cooper settled on one of the high swivel stools and Harkness leant against a counter top. "How are we this morning?" Cooper asked.

"I am well. He is dead."

"Still?" Harkness asked.

Daniel was about to ask about the reanimation policies of Torchwood when Cooper gave Harkness a harsh look. "Jack."

Humour. This was going to be a long meeting.

"The victim, he was stabbed repeatedly to death." Daniel wiped his hands on a clean towel and folded it while he spoke. "A small stabbing weapon, like a..." He pressed the code on the computer and mumbled, "Eispick."

"Icepick!" The male voice said grumpily. Daniel didn't understand why they had decided to make the voice of the facility that of Doctor Harper. It was probably some inside joke that he didn't understand. There were a great deal of those. When he was with UNIT, they had been too busy to have this form of camaraderie, and his job description made him more mobile than stationary, so he didn't have a chance to form any bonds with people.

Besides, he still didn't understand the British sense of humour. The other day he had watched a man with bad hair on the telly sing about "five poufs and two pianos" and realised that he just hadn't the temperament for television. Well, except for Battlestar Galactica. That show was pretty wonderful.

"An icepick," he repeated.

"Is it an icepick for sure, or something like an icepick?" Harkness asked. Cooper crossed her arms and watched as Harkness poked the wound with a pair of calipers, but she didn't say anything to him, and Daniel figured the man was already dead.

"Perhaps. It did not leave much behind, so was not a pencil, or anything wooden. I might find some metal, but I am in doubt." Daniel took the calipers from Harkness and tossed them in the sink.

Harkness dusted his hands off for show, most like, and straightened. "Once I saw a person stabbed to death with an icicle. Then it melted and no one knew what had happened."

Daniel rolled his eyes. The English loved a good murder mystery. "There would have been signs of freezing on the flesh of the wound," he told Harkness. "That old trick never works."

Then it hit him.

"Foosball is a date, right?" he asked Cooper.

Cooper blinked in confusion. "Is Foosball..." He made the wrist gestures that he had showed her the other night and she started. "Oh! Yes! I think it's possible it might be. You should ask, for clarification."

Daniel called up some of the internal photos he'd taken while he thought about it. He had read Maggie's file. All of their files. They all had everything on each other, actually, it was just that no one talked about it. They all seemed to pretend that they didn't know things like that Lois was a traitor, Dee was court martial-ed, Harkness was a mass murderer, or that Maggie was a widow. He had to assume they knew everything in his file, and they all pretended that they didn't.

Well, then, he could play that game, too.

Harkness was back to poking. "What is this green stuff?" he asked staring at the remains of Donagal's shirt.

Daniel pulled on a pair of gloves and handed the box to Harkness. If he was going to keep picking at things, he might as well be covered. "I think it is fibres of some sort."

Harkness scraped at the mess on the collar with his fingernail. Daniel thrust the box of gloves into Harkness's side. He took the box, eyes still on the fibres, and set it to the side. No really, Harkness, gloves, Daniel thought.

 _Dear inheritor of my position,_ he had read in the files that morning, _Sometimes you have to hit or shoot Jack. Don't worry, he'll live. Go for it. Owen Harper_ Followed by another note below: _Addendum: he can be distracted with cleavage. GJ_

Well, Daniel didn't have any...cleavage to flash, and he would have to think about the shooting, but he could do the other. With a glance at Cooper he pulled Harkness's hand away from the clothing, a hand about his wrist. Harkness looked surprised, stared at the hand on his wrist, and then straightened.

"I must ask you to wear gloves," Daniel said, nodding his head at the box. He didn't let go of Harkness, just in case the man ignored him, but he needn't have bothered. Harkness stared at the wrist, and then at the arm that was attached to the wrist. Daniel watched Harkness' gaze travel up his bicep to his shoulder, neck, and face until they locked eyes. Well. Uhm. "Bitte?"

"Not yet," Jack said, winking and taking a pair of gloves anyway. "All right, so Herr Doktor, what killed him?"

"An icepick."

"No, what did the...picking?"

Daniel shrugged. "Someone."

"Or something," Jack added.

Gwen shoved off from the stool and approached the body, something like sympathy playing on her face. "Is it something alien?"

Daniel opened his mouth, but Jack interrupted. "Well, yeah, right? We found him inside one of his boxes."

"There is nothing to suggest that this is an alien case, right?" Cooper prodded.

Daniel glanced from Jack to Cooper and back. "I do not have enough information at this moment in time. I cannot say."

Jack clapped his hands once, dancing back a step and nodding his head, as if he had reached a decision. "Oh yeah, I knew this would happen."

Cooper snorted. "You did not know."

Jack crossed his arms. "well, okay yeah, but I _thought_ something bad would happen."

"Was your Torchwood sense tingling?" Cooper asked. They were ignoring him now. Daniel wondered if he should just go back to work or wait for them to finish. They were in _his lab_ after all.

_Gwen and Jack have this thing old boys' club, and they will perform like circus ponies if you do not stop them. It's fun in meetings when you want to skiv off, or on stakeouts, but not so much if you plan on doing actual work. Incidentally, neither one of them tolerates the circus pony act if you do it with someone else. GJ_

He dropped the tongs he was holding into the metal basin, and they both stared at him. "It will be some times before I have an information," he told them, and as soon as he said it, he knew that wasn't the right thing to say. Things tangled in his mouth. Everything he wanted to say always sounded so hindered in English, like it was off key, as if he was trying to play a piece on a piano, and hitting all the right keys, but the instrument was out of tune.

Cooper didn't seem to mind, and he made a mental note to go back and read her file again. It was in fact the most boring one, but she was his commander, and that alone made her more interesting. Why was Harkness not in charge anymore? Why was he here with Cooper and not Dee, who was technically (legally) second in command? The chain of command was well delineated on paper, but no one seemed to follow it in practice. Just this morning Lois, who was technically not his superior, ordered him to carry all her boxes of paperclips from the supply room (though it had been phrased more like, "Daniel, could you please get these boxes for me?" and not a command).

Cooper shrugged, tucking hair behind one of her ears and studying the body again. "Fair enough. Keep us posted. We should release his body if we don't need it, though." She walked towards the door. "I'll have Lois prep a cover story. Jack-- _Jack_ \--" She snapped two fingers in front of his face and he came to. "You should go pick up Huw's friends again, at least so we know they're safe. He wasn't the only one in on his little joke."

Jack blinked. "Yeah. Right. Sure." He gave Daniel a two fingered salute and followed Cooper from the room.

Daniel stared at the body, then at the clothing on the parallel table. Nothing to it then, but to get to work.

The fibres on the collar of the shirt were green and distinctive. He bagged them, then combed the shirt for more. A few stray hairs. Denim pockets filled with crumpled rolling tobacco papers and lint. Cuffs of the trousers clean except for some sawdust. Socks--Daniel was seriously considering marking them a bio-hazard on principal alone. Socks were supposed to be clean, worn only once. One time he'd been stationed in Venezuela and had seen a man's feet rot in his boots because he didn't change his socks often enough.

 _We are the crowd, we're co-coming out,_ he hummed to himself. He couldn't get that god-forsaken song out of his head. He looked at the iPod dock that Dr Jones had left behind. Still, it wasn't done, listening to music at work. But Torchwood seemed to be the kind of place that didn't care about music in the workplace. Encouraged it, probably, along with lax rules and good coffee. And pastries.

Daniel pulled his iPod from his bag, cued it up, and plugged it into the dock. When the music started, it came from the walls, and not the computer speakers. The place was wired for sound.

Yes, he thought as he pulled the plastic shield over his face and picked up the saw, definitely not the military.

***

Jack was in the middle of the stack of printed photos that he'd asked Lois to make, examining the blue box from every angle, the location, the perspective. Despite what Daniel had said, he still wasn't sure what had killed Huw, and if the doctor couldn't rule out extra-terrestrial homicide, then it was always a possibility. There were a lot of things that could make stab wounds like that, from Ptrixxi claws to the Samblovar birthing knife.

"Lois, Lo, Lolita," he mused, as he turned a photo upside down, "Is there nothing you cannot acquire?"

Lois didn't look up from her computer screen. "According to this email from UNIT, C-4." She sighed. "Every time I ask them for some, they are all 'fresh out'. Methinks I am getting the run around."

"Patience, Lois," Jack told her, "UNIT isn't used to being ordered about by a little slip of a girl--don't look at me like that."

"I have a level five security clearance," Lois snapped, pounding a few commands on her keyboard. That's right, girl, tap harder, and they'll feel it in the email. "So, anything interesting in the pictures?"

Jack flipped through them again, this time focusing on the images from the night before, after they'd cut Huw and the others loose. "Not really. How did we not have a feed on the box itself?"

Lois shrugged. "Cut out. Malfunction. Those cameras haven't been right since they rebuilt the Plass."

"Your tax dollars at work, I suppose," Jack grumbled. Boring; boring; boring; streetwalker on Bute Street; oh, hello hot man soliciting the streetwalker; James Street dog pissing on a hydrant sign; alleyway; alleyway; alle--

"Oh, yeah, that's what I'm talking about," Jack said, slapping the picture down on the desk. Lois slid it to herself and peered at it.

"Did something escape the zoo?"

Jack opened his mouth to reply, but there was a blast of guitar and bass drum from the direction of the med lab, and he snapped his mouth shut. No one had blared music from the specialised speakers in the med lab since Gretchen—well, since Gretchen. It must have been some sort of prerequisite to the job to have a predilection for loud music whilst working; Owen had been overly-fond of the Chemical Brothers. In fact, it was his fault that Jack was even aware that the Chemical Brothers were a music group and not a fancy vitamin shop.

The music wasn't blaring, but it was loud, and it barely covered the bone saw. Jack wondered if this was stereotyping the German people.

_Say your prayers little one, don't forget my son to include everyone…_

Lois smiled. "I was six when this came out."

Jack flopped the photos back onto her desk, reclaiming the one with his lead on it and tucking it into his breast pocket. "As far as I am concerned, you're still six." And when she made a face, he shrugged. "Nothing personal, you know."

"I like this better than The Streets," Lois admitted. "But if you tell him, I'll hurt you."

***

"I was wondering when you'd get down here," Lionel purred, trading DVD sets with her. "Did you see the ep where Bender becomes a wrestling robot?"

Dee glanced about to make sure no one was watching. "Yeah. I liked the one where Leela meets her real parents in the sewers."

Lionel set the Futurama box set on his side table and steepled his fingers. "You would be surprised what lives in the sewers of Cardiff."

Dee shrugged. It wasn't good to give too much away to Lionel. They hadn't told him what had happened to the weevils. In fact, he was blissfully unaware of everything, really. She wasn't sure why he was still here, except that they had come to the consensus that a creature willing to obtain and sell human organs on the black...space market? was someone who probably shouldn't roam free. But they certainly couldn't chuck him in human prison, and Jack said he'd go to Flat Holm over his dead body, a phrase which lost a lot when he said it.

Lionel pressed his index flippers to his lips and smiled, leaning back on his bunk. "My my, such a long face. All not well in the land of Torchwood?"

He had to have seen _The Silence of the Lambs_ , wearing a look like that. "You keep trying. One of these days you might learn something important you can use from your cell."

Lionel waved a hand. "One of these days the Judoon are going to crash in here and arrest you all under the Shadow Proclamation."

That was rich. And also not a little terrifying. "Right," she bluffed. "I imagine they might be interested in some of your interstellar activities."

Lionel waved a hand. "I liked the episode with the giant brains."

Okay then, Dee decided. They apparently weren't going to talk about it.

"You remind me of Leela," Lionel said suddenly.

"You remind me of Zoidberg," she replied. Too easy. After all, he was a fish creature. Racist, really. Alien-ist? Human-ist? There was a whole new vocabulary she had to learn. "Is there anything you would like?"

Lionel leant forward and smiled. "Some fava beans and a bottle of chianti."

Dee pivoted on her heel and strode out, waving over her shoulder. "I'll see what I can do."

It was a short walk over to the other detention cells, the ones for shorter term residents. Messier residents. Here the pallets were low to the ground and stuffed with cheap bedding or straw. They had recessed drainage holes that were sealed five feet below the surface until a valve opened them (sometimes things tried to escape through the pipes). The walls were unpainted concrete for easy cleaning, and the sprinklers and gas intake holes in the ceiling were hidden cleverly in five-inch recessed tubes.

She joined Jack and stared into the two-way glass at the creature they'd picked up that morning. "I don't think he did it."

Jack crossed his arms. "He was in the area, and he has stabbing weapons that come from his forearms." He shrugged. "Something made those wounds."

Dee smiled. "Like an icepick?" Jack looked like he was going to say something when the Ptrixxi inside the holding cell rammed into the wall. They watched it eject a long thin knife the width and length of a knitting needle from its forearm and begin to massacre its bedding.

"He has rights, you know," Dee told him.

Jack stared at the creature tearing up its mattress. "He's an alien. He crashed here and spends his days nicking autos to get by." He glanced away, at her face. "Also, when I nabbed him he was hocking bags of blood from the local bank."

"I repeat, even illegal aliens have rights," Dee stressed, crossing her arms to mirror Jack and tapping her foot. "But maybe we should detain him indefinitely and then use him as target practice." She nodded firmly.

Jack shook his head. "Reverse psychology doesn't work on me."

"Well, logic wasn't working."

"Careful, Deirdre."

He had a point. If the thing was near the area, it could have done the crime. Though motive was unknown, perhaps it simply took advantage of Huw being in the wrong place at the right time. Or the right place at the wrong time. Or just in the fucked place at the sad time.

"Why did it bother to hide the body?" she murmured. "Why did it kill him in the first place? It didn't rob him, and it didn't maul him or dismember or otherwise mutilate him." Jack didn't look at her, just stared at the Ptrixxi stabbing at the drainage holes in the floor. Good luck getting out that way, she thought grimly.

"I have a hard time trusting all the things that come from the sky these days," he said softly.

Dee smiled. "You came from the sky," he reminded him.

Jack shook his head eyes still glued to the Ptrixxi, who had decided that its bed was ripped up enough and was now pissing on it. "Yeah, and look what I did."

***

Jack had a bad track record with catching things in warehouses: weevils, dinosaurs, people, boyfriends. The doors creaked when he opened them, but that didn't matter because the music was loud enough to mask a small elephant massacre. Or a chorus of Shriners with bicycle horns.

_Ba-ra, ah-ah-ah, ro-ma, ro-ma-ma, ga-ga, oh-la-la, want your bad romance..._

Well, he thought as he glanced around for the source of the music and not finding it, could have been worse. Could have been the other song.

Nothing in the warehouse moved, but he knew someone was there. And it wasn't as if he was going to _arrest_ them or anything. He just wanted to follow up with some questions. He had the Ptrixxi in custody, a dapper cheerful fellow whose likes included stabbing things and racing cars, and whose turn-offs included talking and being cooperative.

Cora had given this address as the location where they'd made the boxes, so Jack figured it would be a good place to find them. He didn't fancy going to their actual homes, especially since Percival Alun Hocking apparently lived in a van down by the Taff. Huw was over in Grangetown, and Cora somewhere down by Barry.

He really didn't want to have to find the van down by the river.

Gwen had a point. It was probably best to make sure the two of them were safe. If the something that had killed Huw Donagal was still out there, then it made sense that it might also be after the two of them, if this was indeed connected to the boxes and not like, some sort of gambling debt or robbery gone bad.

And all of it was moot, Jack thought as he nudged some empty paint cans aside with one boot, because they had the culprit.

 _What makes you so sure it was the Ptrixxi, eh?_ his inner voice, one who no longer sounded like him most days, chimed in. _In fact, you of all people should know that it's unlikely--_

"Right," he said, though he only heard the vibration of the word in his throat, because the music was way too loud. Maybe he could shoot the speaker. Or go back in time and find whoever sang this. And stop her. A little retcon and--

_I want your love and all your lover's revenge--_

Maybe the song was about retcon.

Jack shook his head and searched the first floor of the warehouse. It was pretty empty: paint cans, sawdust, a few power tools, wads and wads of blue spotted canvas. An old toolbox with a few rusty things. Jack palmed the screwdriver in his handkerchief and slipped it into his pocket, just in case. If his inner voice wasn't on his side, he wasn't dumb enough to ignore it.

Nor was he dumb enough to ignore the crunching noises from behind him. Jack whirled just in time to catch the bat in one hand, landing with a resounding smack and a few nails through his hand. If this had been aimed at his head and not his shoulder, it mght have killed him. Whoever was holding it meant business.

Vandy panted and tugged on the other end of the bat. Jack was more than willing to let it go, once he got the nails out. He waggled his palm and yanked. The movement tore at the muscles in his hand, his _shooting_ hand, dammit, but Vandy let go. Jack flung his arm out and down reflexively, and the nails slipped from the meat of his palm; the bat flew off into the distance. Blood sluiced all over the canvas cloth around him.

_you're a criminal as long as you're mine_

First, he was beating the seven bells out of this loser, Jack decided, then he was locating the stereo and beating the sixteen bells out of it.

"Hey buddy," Jack said loudly, "what was that..." Vandy whirled and sped back into the recesses of the warehouse. "For."

It wasn't every day that he was attacked with a nail bat, Jack mused as he debated pulling his gun. Then he'd have to shoot Vandy, and that wasn't precisely what he wanted to do. The man looked strung out. Junkies made bad decisions, and people trying to shoot them usually ended up regretting pulling the firearm in the first place.

_love love love I want your love_

It was difficult not to think that Vandy was up to something when he attacked people out of the blue. Not that he had a very strong reason to trust Jack. Or a very strong grasp on reality, probably.

He was a dab hand at hiding, though. Jack flicked more blood off into the distance and scanned the recesses of the warehouse. Jack was beginning to formulate a scenario in his head: Vandy had accidentally stabbed Huw and then panicked, stuffing him in the box. Accidentally stabbed him ten times. As theories went, it was just as good as his Ptrixxi one. A little more solid, maybe. And if it was a possibility, then...something else tickled Jack's brain.

"You'll never take me alive, copper!" Vandy screamed, revealing to Jack that he was off to the left and also that he had a poor imagination.

Jack squeezed his hand into a fist and watched blood squirt out the back of it, and then dove for some rustling tarpaulins hanging from a few low pipes. He almost made contact with Vandy's shoulder, but the grip was too slippery; the man shot out from the tarps, dragging one of them with him like a shabby ghost, a chain wrapped about his wrist. He dashed for the closest set of stairs to the upper catwalk.

Fighting a junkie on an upper level with the potential for the falling and the dying had even less appeal than fighting him on the lower level. Jack ran after him and almost caught his ankle, but his bloody hand was too slow and his good hand was apparently not the dominant one.

Vandy turned on the steps and swung the chain. Jack dodged it, but before he could straighten back up, something careened out of the dark and caught the man in the chest. The paint can bounded off him and flew away, clattering as it went. Vandy dropped the chain in surprise and teetered on the edge of one step. He tried to step backwards, to retreat, but his foot missed the full ledge of the stair, and his heel skidded down. His feet did the predictable chain reaction that occurred in most slapstick films, and he pinwheeled his arms to keep his balance.

Jack braced himself to catch him, but instead of pitching forward, he fell backwards and slid down the stairs, hitting his head on every edge possible. Just watching it made Jack's skull hurt.

Vandy came to a full stop when his imitation Doc Martens hit the floor and he sprawled on the stairs, out cold. Jack kicked the chain away from his feet and crouched, feeling for a pulse: there it was, going a mile a minute.

_work it I'm a free bitch, baby!_

Lois stepped from the shadows and pressed a button on her Hub remote. The music cut off.

"Universal remote," Lois said, waving it. "Why didn't you use your wrist strap?"

"Because I'm an idiot," Jack answered, blinking and pulling himself off the ground. Vandy was sprawled out on the floor by his feet, moaning. There wasn't any blood, but that had been a bad series of smacks on the metal steps. "We should get him to hospital," he said absently.

Lois joined him and stared at the unconscious man. "Shame we can't interrogate him some more."

Jack grabbed a wad of cloth and wrapped it around his bleeding hand. He'd need a few minutes to seal this up completely. "You and Maggie and your thirst for water boarding."

"I saved your life," Lois answered.

"No you didn't."

She was about to say something when their comms chirped. Lois leant against a wall and poked Vandy with one foot. "Hullo?"

"Those fibres that were on the shirt," Daniel said. "They are from a coat." Man, Maggie should be careful with this one, Jack thought. No foreplay at all.

"And how are you, Herr Doktor?" Jack leant down and pulled at the neck of Vandy's t-shirt, yanking him off the floor. The man's mohawk was still pretty much intact; that was some serious hair gel. Lois reached out and tapped it with one finger, and it did everything but make the 'boing' noise.

"A woman's coat." Daniel was determined to relay his information.

"Available at H&M for thirty quid," Maggie added. Figured they'd be working together. "Popular with the young teenage emo crowd, if the advertisement is anything to go by."

Jack blinked and slapped at Vandy's face. "Come on kid, it was just a little bonk."

"Oh Captain Harkness," Lois chided, "stop terrorising the locals."

"The fibres were embedded in the wound as well," Daniel told them, cutting through what was probably going to be a very witty reply on Jack's part as soon as he had thought of it. "Whoever was wearing the coat mostly likely did the stabbing, or was very close to the weapon. Fibres caught in the metal tip pushed into the wound."

"So we're looking for someone with a green coat from H&M," Jack said.

Vandy chose that moment to open his eyes, and the look on his face told Jack that he'd heard everything. Faker. And yet, telling.

"Oh no," Jack mumbled, and then turned to Lois. "Where's Gwen?"

***

Gwen locked the SUV and stuffed her hands in her pockets. Behind her, Daniel checked his gun and stuffed it into his front draw holster, under his jacket. It occurred to Gwen that she hadn't seen him shoot yet, just read his scores in his file--they were okay, not great. She was better. Owen hadn't been better, though, and so it was wise to compare him to that. Gretchen's scores had been overwhelmingly sketchy.

She would have preferred to have Dee with her, or even Jack (okay, maybe not Jack this time), but Dee was in the middle of a release part of a catch and release with an angry Ptrixxi. They'd lo-jacked him, which was the best they could do--to keep tabs on him, but the thing wasn't guilty of this, and having a weapon didn't make him a killer.

Sometimes the logic was insane. And it was earth logic, too.

She could see the back of the green coat from here. Cora was huddled on the basin steps. The coat was too thin for the early spring chill, and her fingers wrapped around a paper coffee cup. An unlit cigarette dangled from her red-painted lips. Gwen zipped her coat up to her neck. There was no need for the two of them to be armed here, and Daniel had her back. That was what military men did, right?

A few raindrops hit her in the face as she walked across the Plass. Figured.

Cora saw them well before they got to her, but she didn't move or try to run. Just peeled the lid from her cup and drained the last of her drink. Daniel made some noise in the back of his throat and when Gwen glanced at him, he waved his hand back and forth, at the other people milling about. True. Someone needed to make sure this went smoothly. Andy had already called her to ask her about Vandy's performance demonstration two days earlier.

"Nice coat," she said, sitting a few feet from Cora on the steps and watching two teenagers skateboarding down the flat expanse of cement in the middle of the basin. One of them jumped up in the air and magically the board went with him. Now that was talent, Gwen considered, when the kid landed face first on the pavement and bounced back up. His friends laughed at him.

Cora made two small vertical tears in the lip of the cup and began rolling it down. "I guess this is the end, yeah?"

Gwen shrugged. Skater boy gave his friends the V and almost tripped over a paving stone. _Her_ paving stone. Well not hers anymore. "I dunno," she said finally. "It rather depends on what you mean by that."

The show in the Millennium Centre let out and people spilled out into the night, chattering happily. Skater boy and his friends shuffled off to the boardwalk. Gwen wondered if Rachel and Russ were still at the TIC. Daniel hadn't met them yet, and she wasn't sure if she should introduce them. That was something to save for when she knew that they were keeping Daniel on permanently. On the other hand, sometime over the past week, she'd already decided.

"We were going to break down the boxes, use the wood for something else," Cora said lightly, pulling a long strip of cup wall down before turning the cup and making another rip. The torn ribbons curled in her fingers as she worked. "He had an idea to make a huge replica of Thames House on the Senned steps."

Gwen thought she might like to see that.

"He was so angry. Said you had no right to drag us in there, that people had a right to know about what was happening around them." Her cup was almost a complete wilted flower.

"Who did he lose?" Gwen whispered, watching the people take pictures of each other in front of the Millennium Centre, with the writing in the background. _In these stones horizons sing_ meant less to her now than it might have three years ago. Everything about this place meant less to her, because what she wanted wasn't here anymore.

Someone's child ran screaming down the basin, arms pinwheeling. Gwen's heart sped up, and only slowed when the child's trip ended in a curving hook back the way it had come and a laugh bubbled from it. It's parents filmed with a mobile camera.

"His mum was taken by Daleks," Cora said, reaching into her pocket. "Few years ago his older brother disappeared in Canary Wharf."

Gwen didn't have anything to say to that. There was nothing to say except, _Jesus,_ or _What bad luck,_ or, _I have that beat,_ because God wasn't part of this, and it hadn't been luck that killed those people, and she didn't have it beat; no one ever could. Deaths weren't competitions of pain and survivor suffering--they were more than that, and really, less. That was what it made it hurt so much, Gwen had decided.

Because the world hadn't ended when Tosh and Owen had died, and it hadn't ended when Ianto had died, and it wouldn't have ended even if they'd given up ten percent of their children.

But Cora was going on. Gwen tore her eyes away from the gaggle of teenagers at the other side of the basin and watched Daniel shuffle his foot in a way that looked innocent, but was really just a transference of weight from the ball of one foot to another. Gwen thought it might be worth it to get Dee and Daniel in a cage match with each other. On a slow day. If they ever had one.

"We had some tools and hatchets, and I asked him what he wanted me to do," Cora sighed. "I asked him, and he said, 'I don't care what you do.'" She opened her hand and let go of the icepick, its wooden handle spotted rusty red. Gwen let it tumble to the ground. They'd bag it later. Daniel had plastic bags in his kit.

"He was like that, you know," Cora went on, nudging the icepick with her toe. "We met at the Ghost thing, here, right here." She stared out at the basin, towards the water tower, her eyes slightly distant, seeing ghosts that weren't there anymore, some play that she had stored in her head. Daniel inched closer and there was the crackle of gentle plastic when he reached out with a hand and bagged the icepick, picking it up with one hand and deftly inverting the bag that covered it.

"He was angry," Gwen told her. She hadn't known Huw, but she knew enough to figure that out. "He needed someone to blame."

"He told me that I was worthless. He said I was some blind sheep, and I--" Cora tore her eyes away from the water tower and blinked at Gwen. "He said I was worthless."

Oh dear.

"I wasn't thinking. I...I was just so angry..."

The skater boys returned with Starbucks cups and tried to race down the basin one handed.

"So I did it," Cora said, sounding tired. "I did it, and I take it back." She blinked at Gwen. "You're Torchwood, right? Can't you bring him back?"

Gwen reached out and put her hand over Cora's. Everything was so very blurry. "No. No, we can't."

***

Never let it be said that she didn't get to do fun things, Lois thought as she waved to the Daffyds pulling away in the Harwood's lorry. She had sworn to them that this was the last time, and there was a fat envelope of cash in each of their shirt pockets, so she didn't feel too guilty that it was eight in the evening. They didn't seem to be too put out, actually, rather amused, as if they found the antics of Torchwood to be a source of entertainment. She wondered what they told all the blokes back at the dispatch. She supposed if it was anything bad or incriminating, Rhys would pass it on, and Gwen would order it taken care of. Just this morning Maggie was telling her something about lickable retcon. Strawberry-flavoured retcon. Though how anyone would know what it tasted like was a mystery. At least, much more of a mystery than the one they'd just solved..

Jack closed the warehouse doors after she cut the engine to the forklift. "I'll lock this and then we're out of here," he told her. "You have the keys?"

"So hey," Lois said as she jumped out of the cab and tossed Jack the keys. "A case with no aliens at all. No alien tech or anything."

"Looks like," Jack agreed, turning to examine the nineteen remaining blue boxes they'd stashed in the warehouse.

"Not quite, sorry to disappoint, kids," said a voice from amid the boxes in front of them. A voice that sounded a lot like—

Jack stepped out from behind one of the boxes close to them and raised a hand. "Hi there."

Jack pulled his gun and trained it on the newcomer, new arrival, oh hell, the other him. "Hands up."

Jack raised his hands. "I was so trigger-haired then." He frowned. "Now. Whenever. Before." But he didn't try to move. "There's nothing I could say to you to convince you that I'm me. Us. You know."

"Try me," Jack said, tipping the barrel up in a mysterious gesture.

Lois put her vision on auto-record and stood there: Jack Harkness, same height. Shorter hair, tanner face, a few crows feet. Long military jacket, but not the blue he used to wear. This one was gray leather. The insignia was something she didn't recognise, so she snapped her eyelids a few times like a camera shutter, her personal physical trigger for her eidetic memory.

"You used to have a mission," Jack said, lowering his hands minutely. "You used to be more fair. Do you remember Alice and how crazy she was?" His face darkened. "Just blew that Blowfish away."

Jack waved his weapon, and the hands went back up. "Do not compare me to Guppy."

Jack cocked his head. "I just did."

Lois reached into her jacket pocket and realised that she didn't have a firearm. "Captain Harkness--"

"Yes?" came in stereo. This wasn't going to be useful. Lois shook her head and watched the two Jacks stare at each other. Neither one of them was saying anything, but Jack slowly lowered his gun.

"I was thinking that the other day," he said suddenly.

The new arrival lowered his hands. "I know. That's what brought me."

Lois had never felt so lost. Not only were there two Jacks, but they were speaking another language without speaking another language. Maybe she should shoot them both. It would be the only way to be sure. If she had a firearm. Way to be unprepared.

She added this scenario to her preparedness list.

Jack holstered his weapon. "I'm looking good," he said.

"You never stopped," Jack said, turning his smile on Lois before reaching into his coat pocket. "And before I forget, this is for you." He held out a small paperboard box. Lois took it, glancing at Jack. Her Jack. Jack-Jack, now-Jack.

"Should I have done that?"

Now-Jack shrugged. "Depends on what it is. What is it?"

"Zambloney," Older-Jack replied.

"Really?" Now-Jack looked interested. "Isn't that messing with the time-line?"

Older-Jack shrugged, much like his younger counterpart had just done. "I don't see how. But _this_ \--" He paused, pulling a little black object the size of a car key-chain button from his pocket and tossing it to Jack. "That will."

Now-Jack almost fumbled the thing, and for a second Lois braced herself for explosion, but Jack recovered and then looked at what he'd caught. "This is a bad idea."

"Meh," Older-Jack replied. "You know us, fixed time. So technically, everything moves around us. We're the big rock in the river."

"Nice to know I get more Zen as I get older," Jack mumbled. He didn't look at all happy to see himself. Lois didn't blame him.

"You don't know the half of it," Older-Jack chirped, grinning. "We may be fixed, but that doesn't mean we can't stick our fingers in the current from time to time." He held up one hand, then opened and closed it quickly over and over again. "Hey, what's this?"

Now-Jack raised an eyebrow. "Something that will get you in trouble on seven planets?"

Older-Jack smiled. "That is the sound of one hand clapping."

Lois glanced at her Jack. "Older you is funny."

"That's not what I would have called it."

Older-Jack laughed, but it was a laugh that someone made when they were humoring a child; Lois had heard it enough. She wondered if Jack had kids--he sounded like he had practice. Part of her fell in love with the idea of Jack having children, tonnes of children to crawl over him and love him unconditionally.

"And with that, I'm out of here. It's been swell, but the swelling's gone down." He pointed a finger gun at himself. "You'll figure it all out."

Now-Jack waved the little black thing he'd caught. "Seriously, you shouldn't be--"

"How do you know it's messing?" Older-Jack waved a hand. "Timey-wimey."

Now-Jack shoved the thing in his pocket and smiled. "I'll put it some place safe." Lois glanced down at the cardboard looking box in her hand. Where could she put this that was safe? Did she have to turn it in to Torchwood? Was it really for her?

Older-Jack stepped backwards into the line of blue boxes. "I would try to distract you and run away, but that's old school." He smiled. "So I'm just going to say you can't follow me."

Now-Jack saluted with two fingers. "Go away before something explodes."

Lois wondered what would happen if two Jacks touched. Something about the universe imploding. She'd read about it once. But if Jack was special, did that mean he was immune to touching himself?

If she asked, she'd get some joke about threesomes.

So they just stood there, holding their gifts from Father Jack-mas, as the coat disappeared about a corner. Jack stared hard at the spot for a few seconds, hand resting on his holster. Lois wondered what would have happened if he had shot himself. If it was really him, then, nothing much, right? If it wasn't him, then they would have had a whole new adventure on their hands.

"Was it you?" she asked, when Jack seemed to sag a bit, as if he had been trying to make himself look bigger, some self-preservation technique that would scare away predators. Now that it was over, the hard corners of his shoulders seemed to diminish. Lois sucked in a deep breath and tried it herself. Maybe you had to be a soldier.

Jack shrugged. "Could have been, yeah, it was me." He rubbed his chin. "I think I had work done. Do you think I had work done?"

"This is going to be fun to write up," she mumbled, remembering the binder containing the forms was titled, 'When You Meet Yourself' and was about an inch thick. In ten point font. As a primary witness, her binder, titled, 'When You Meet Someone Else When You Are Already With Them,' was about half that thick, but still, a great deal of work. Who named these things?

That seemed to shock Jack out of his internal thought. He wasn't seriously thinking about cosmetic surgery, Lois knew; Jack joked at inappropriate times to buy himself thinking time. "Do we have to?" he asked her, smiling widely. It might have worked on someone else, but Lois just shook her head. The warehouse was getting cold with the night air, and she wanted to go home. She shrugged and nodded to the door.

"It can wait until tomorrow," she said. "In the meantime, what do I do with the…Zambloney?" Lois shook the box. There was a rattling inside.

Jack took the box from her and peeled one end open. "You give half of them to your favorite Jack, and then take the rest home to Dor," he said, then winked. "Trust me."

Lois rolled her eyes. "You're the only Jack I know."

Jack thumbed behind him to where Older-Jack had gone. "Nonsense, what about that bloke?"

Lois was trying to think of a good answer when there was a familiar sound, like a whistle, like grinding. Off behind the front row of fake Tardises (Tardii? They'd never settled), a blue light flashed slowly off and on. Jack's eyes widened and he darted away from her, right between the Tard—for god's sakes, the blue boxes—towards the noise and light.

Lois followed him, trying to keep up, but the sound finished before she got there, and by the time she found Jack, he was standing amidst the boxes, staring at a blank space that Lois remembered hadn't been there before. Had the…?

"No way," she whispered. "Was that…?"

"Spoilers my ass," Jack mumbled, then turned away and made for the door.

***

"I don't know if this was more bizarre because of the things we see in this job," Gwen said, "or just scintillatingly mundane." She walked down the hall of the police station with Daniel. After holding her overnight in the Hub and running some tests to eliminate the possibility of alien influence they'd transferred Cora over to custody with all of their evidence. Torchwood-to-police chain of custody was difficult for legal reasons, and some of the things they had in evidence, they couldn't turn over, and other things they took custody of in ways that made fingerprinting evidence legally inadmissible, etc.

It was moot anyway. Cora'd given a full confession. Still, if she ponied up and changed her mind, her barrister could play with the evidence until everything was thrown out. If that happened, Gwen would be back. Unofficially. When the system doesn't work because Torchwood fucked with it, it was Torchwood's job to make sure things didn't fall through the cracks.

What Cora really needed was rehabilitation. Possibly a lot of counseling. And jail time. Gwen believed in jail time. Probably so did Huw's family.

"I have not worked here long enough since such a conclusion," Daniel said. Gwen nodded. It was easier to get around Daniel's tiny little mistakes. They were consistent, at least.

"I'll ask you again at your yearly review," she joked.

"Why?"

Gwen couldn't help herself. She laughed. She was laughing _with_ him, she tried to convince herself, not _at him_. He just didn't know to laugh yet. But he would. Get a few more pasties in him, a few more weeks around Maggie and Jack. Let Myfanwy shit on his head when he was feeding her, and he'd be one of them.

They had barely hit the pavement when the flash bulbs started going off. It was blinding. Gwen had only ever been at one press conference, and it hadn't been like this. There didn't seem to be any press, just a set of quite obnoxious photographers jumping and skulking. Skulking. That was new.

"Alex, Alex," someone called, and Daniel turned his head to see who was screaming, catching a flash in the face.

"Ugh," he said, and grabbed Gwen's arm, threading his way through a gap in the lights. Gwen wasn't even sure she'd be able to find the car, let alone drive it. Daniel didn't seem to be fazed; he simply put his hand up a little to shield his eyes and guided them to the kerb.

"Are you here on location?"

"This way!"

"Where's Kate?"

Gwen let Daniel lead her and covered her eyes with her hand. "Do you know these people?" she tried to say softly, but she was sure that Daniel couldn't hear her unless she shouted. He didn't reply, but opened the passenger door and dove in, dragging her behind him. He climbed the gearshift to the driver seat, and Gwen slammed the door. The tinted windows dulled the bulbs, but they wouldn't be enough to keep the pictures from turning out.

"What the hell?" Gwen mumbled. Daniel just fumbled with the keys, blinking at the steering column. Gwen wondered if he could drive.

"Wait a second! That's not Alexander Skarsgård!" one of the photographers said then, and the flash bulbs slowed. "He's not even hot!"

Daniel just snorted and started the SUV.

"They thought you were—"

He shrugged and put it in gear, then pulled out into the road, expertly almost missing a stubborn cameraman. "It happens."

***

Dor rolled over on the carpet and flung her arm over Lois's waist. "Mine is 'spinny'."

Lois sucked on the Zambloney in her mouth. "I think I got 'inert'," she said in disappointment.

Dor laughed. "Bite down."

Lois complied and was immediately rewarded with a falling sensation, not unlike being on a roller coaster. She blinked at the ceiling and waved a hand in front of her face. "Wooo."

It had been a long and gruelling day of paperwork--chain of custody forms, medical dossiers that had to be compiled without any trace of alien involvement (not that there had been any. It was still harder than it would seem). And then there was the binder, the Thing That Was All Jack's Fault.

After they had told Gwen and the others about the other Jack, they'd had to answer the volley of questions. Then they'd had to undergo a few tests themselves, most of which involved being photographed by the "neutrino camera." The neutrino camera made her skin twitch.

And when she'd handed in her paper work, Gwen had barely glanced at it. Lois wanted to be offended, but in the end, she wondered why none of them hadn't met themselves earlier. She'd taken her Older-Jack present home to Dor, who had opened the box with a squeal of surprise.

"I love your job," Dor purred as she rolled away and grabbed a water bottle, sucking half of the contents down. As she did, the gray tint of her skin changed to a milky blue. Lois never ceased to be fascinated by the thermo-chromic effects of her girlfriend's skin. In the bath, she turned white.

Lois stretched. "It's a bit of all right sometimes."

"On my home planet," Dor said quietly. Laying her head on Lois's thigh. "I had a lover with skin like yours."

Lois twirled one of Dor's curls around her finger. "Oh?"

"Yes." Dor flashed her pointed teeth and licked her lips, then rested her head on the flat of Lois's belly. "Everything about her brown. She tasted like satisfaction."

"How does satisfaction taste?" Lois asked, turning a little so that they could situate the blanket and fall asleep right here. It was warm. The radiator was toasty, and it would be a sin at this point to have to get up.

Dor just smiled into Lois's skin. "Like you."

Well, that was a hard compliment to take. Not that it was bad. Lois just. She. Well, that was.

Okay.

"I think that's my body lotion," she said at last.

"We should have a baby," Dor murmured sleepily.

Lois thought about it for a moment. "Okay."

***

Dee swallowed the last of the candy and drank from her margarita. "I'm still not sure my feet are on the ground," she said.

"They're not," Jack reminded her, and she realised that they were still sitting on the roof access house on top of the Hub, the highest point in, well, what looked like kilometers from here.

The view was amazing.

Jack hummed something under his breath, and she smiled.

"'Disco stick' is a pretty crass euphemism, isn't it?" Jack mumbled.

"Why me, Harkness?" she said suddenly.

"Because I love your muffins," Jack said, swinging his feet and banging his heels on the wall. "Because Maggie booked off."

"I would have thought that Cooper—"

"Gwen has seen enough alien things to jade her for a lifetime," Jack replied. "You're my last potential convert to the House of Wonder." He fished out anther Zambloney and put it in her hand. "The green ones are the best. Tingle on the outside, swirly on the inside."

"House of Wonder," she said, blinking at the spinning stars in the sky.

Jack hummed to himself. "Like the House of Windsor. Just more fun and less Dubonnet."

Dee popped the space sweet in her mouth and sat back a little as the tingle started in her toes and worked its way up to her thighs. Jack was right, this was the best one. "I think I like the whole space sweets thing."

Jack waved a hand. "I notice you're not using a fork." She gave him the V. Jack laughed at her and refilled his empty glass from the shaker they'd brought up. "This is nice and nostalgic."

"Only you would use 'nostalgic' to refer to something from the future."

Jack tipped the metal canister and refilled her glass as well. "Not just me," he said without looking at her. Dee didn't have the curiosity to ask what he meant, because the 'swirly' bit of her Zambloney kicked in, and for a few seconds she rode the sensation, until Jack reached out and steadied her with one hand. She paused to look at his hand on her shoulder and realised that she had been rocking in circles.

"We're even, you know," Jack said. "For the concrete. And the rest of it."

Dee thought about that. In her heart, she'd known that they were even for quite some time. She didn't feel guilty about what she had done at all. Not on a personal level. Jack was perfectly fine. It was the other thing that she was atoning for. Because once, when she had tried to speak to Jack's daughter about it, she'd been threatened with a knife.

"I think about him sometimes," she said softly. "What we did to—"

Jack drained his glass and took the lid from the mixer, then drained it too. "Don't. Don't think about that, because you didn't do it."

"I helped," she said.

"If I hadn't wanted to do it," Jack told her, setting the mixer down on the concrete wall and kicking his feet, "you couldn't have stopped me from stopping you."

"I did bury you in concrete," she countered.

"And see how well that worked out for you."

He had a point.

"She's alright, you know," she told him. "As alright as she could be."

Jack shrugged and dumped two of the sweets into his hand. "I'm going to do two at once." He grinned at her, but something was missing. Dee didn't try to get it back for him. It would return on its own. "See if I can float and sink at the same time."

"Is that even possible?" She closed her eyes and opened them again quickly. The stars changed direction, spots in the spin cycle.

Jack sucked on the sweets, their shells clacking against each other in his mouth. "Yeah. Oh yeah."

 

_Baby you'll be famous, chase you down until you love me_

END


End file.
